Will the Arabs ever accept Israel's right to exist?

It is troubling that neither The Sun's news coverage nor its editorial regarding the United Nations' recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state bothered to mention what Palestinian AuthorityMahmoud Abbas actually said in his speech to the General Assembly preceding the vote.

President Abbas could have used the U.N. forum to confirm Palestine's commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel and to underscore how its enhanced U.N. status will further that goal.

Instead, Mr. Abbas defamed Israel by repeating the scurrilous lies and distortions that are common parlance in the Arab world.

He opened his remarks by bewailing the Gaza residents "murdered" by "the latest Israeli aggression." And he described Israel's response to the rockets rained on its cities by Hamas as confirmation of Israel's "adherence to the policy of occupation, brute force and war."

Mr. Abbas characterized Israel's creation in 1948 as "an unprecedented historical injustice" and as "one of the most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern history."

He also accused Israel of "the perpetration of war crimes," the promotion of "racism," and the institution of an "apartheid system."

Sixty-five years ago, the Arab world's rejection of the U.N. resolution that partitioned the former British Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state resulted in a conflict that remains with us to this day.

Given President Abbas' most recent remarks, one must question whether the Palestinian people are any more accepting a Jewish state now than they were in 1947.